


and you might have network connectivity problems

by talia_ae



Category: Parks and Recreation, Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M, Parks and Recreation fangirling, not really meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talia_ae/pseuds/talia_ae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Mark and Eduardo reconnect through the magic of Tom Haverford saying "chickie chickie parm parm."  Or, where the internet brings them together again.  Too bad it's anonymous and on Livejournal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and you might have network connectivity problems

**Author's Note:**

> written for a fill on the kinkmeme during Hurricane Irene. Written pre-s4 of Parks, so may have some spoilers or something, idk. Aaaaaand crack, you have been warned.

It's Dustin who first made Mark watch _Parks and Recreation_. His argument had managed to be both simple and convoluted: the show was full of _joy_ , which was something Mark sorely needed in his life, and also if Mark couldn't watch Aziz Ansari say "chickie chickie parm parm" without cracking a grin it was definitive proof that he had no soul.

So maybe it was some kind of test. Or something. Mark doesn't really know, and Dustin hasn't been like this since _Angel_ was cancelled, and Dustin is capable of epic mope-fits.

Also, he might as well use his Netflix, considering how he's had some George Clooney movie on his coffee table for god knows how long.

He watches the first two seasons in a weekend, and gets the rest through Hulu as quickly as possible. It's almost surprising how much he likes the show. Good call, Dustin.

Nothing really happens, though, until Mark is searching for some interview with Amy Poehler and ends up back on LiveJournal.

Huh. He'd kind of forgotten (tried to block out) that it was ever a thing.

Okay. He's not stupid; he'd changed his username after the whole Erica debacle to markthetwain. Let people think he was a fan, whatever, it was easier than making another Zuck-related pun, and probably less offensive in the long run.

He clicks around LiveJournal for a while-- which really hasn't changed too much, to be honest-- and would have forgotten the whole thing except for an interview with Adam Scott about _Parks and Rec_. The interviewer had asked about fanfiction, Adam Scott has asked if it was dirty, and Mark would be lying if he'd said his interest wasn't at least slightly piqued.

-

Eduardo only watches the videos that Dustin links him too when he's really bored at work.

Unfortunately, this is fairly often. When your job is mostly reading through business reports and wondering how to make your _billion dollars_ increase, you tend to watch a lot of old SNL clips. And maybe watch _Buffy_ and _Angel_ , then spend two hours on the phone with Dustin commiserating over what happens to Cordelia.

It's only when he's seriously considering buying the _Friends_ box set that Eduardo discovers the joys of Ron Swanson.

So he's kind of hooked.

Because he has the _best timing ever_ , the show is on summer hiatus. The weather in Singapore is unpleasant. When Dustin links him to a large amount of surprisingly decent fanfiction (does Mark ever make Dustin do any work?) he reads it.

-

Chris calls from New York in the middle of July.

"Mark," he says. "Hi."

Mark blinks a little bit. "Hi."

"Dustin just texted me," Chris says, and Mark groans cause he knows what's coming next. "Go home and bathe, please. You're a grown-ass man; I shouldn't need to remind you about basic hygiene."

"Photo-tag update code," Mark says, but he can tell from 3000 miles away that Chris is shaking his head.

"Don't go into work all weekend," Chris responds. "I don't work for you anymore, so you can't threaten to fire me. This is an order."

Mark rolls his eyes, but two hours later, he's leaving the Facebook offices.

It's day outside, and the sky is very blue.

Whatever. He'll just rewatch TV until he can troubleshoot the code without feeling like he's cheating on Chris's ultimatum.

It's sincerely the fault of the boredom (and the sunlight outside-- does Chris want him to become a lobster?) that, fifteen hours into a free weekend, Mark finds himself writing fanfiction.

What? It's the internet and he has an untraceable IP.

And all those old entries from Harvard are friendslocked, anyways. And it's not like he has any LiveJournal friends.

It's fine.

-

Eduardo finds most of the fanfiction strangely engrossing. He can waste such a lot of time clicking around, reading stories that number at twenty thousand words. It's brilliant.

The majority of it is on LiveJournal, and dimly Eduardo wonders if Mark still has his account. 

He can't. There's no way. The internet is written in ink, but Mark's smart. He would have deleted it. And even if he didn't want to, his lawyers would have probably forced him. Let someone else dig through the Google cache.

Wouldn't he have?

-

Mark starts out small. He writes drabbles for a weekly challenge, short things, never going over 200 words. He knows he isn't a bad writer, but he's definitely better at coding. He has to watch his grammar here, watch his characterization and how he phrases the dialogue. It's much less black and white than code, and there's a lot more open for interpretation.

Nevertheless, it's a nice way to spend an evening, curled up on his oversized couch with a laptop and techno music playing in the background on the sound system Dustin forced him to buy a few summers ago, once they could pretty much afford whatever the fuck they wanted.

He gets better. He posts longer pieces of work, going past simple one-shots.

He gets some feedback, not because he's Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, but because he's writing about characters he likes and doing it competently.

It's... kind of addicting. In the best way possible.

-

Eduardo told himself that while he wasn't going to get involved in this fandom past a certain point, he could read fanfiction anonymously. And it's a system that works. He doesn't feel creepy on this internet this way, not like he does when he _sometimes_ clicks over to Mark's Facebook page.

Which happens rarely, he would like to point out. Really only happens when he's drunk.

Anyways.

He wasn't going to get involved, but it seems almost _rude_ at a certain point to read and not comment. He makes an account under the name robotchicken, because there's no harm in saying 'good job!', is there? Or writing that he liked the characterization?

Of course there isn't. Positive reinforcement is a good thing; it means that he'll be able to encourage them to write more and he'll be able to spend even more time procrastinating.

(It's possible that he needs to reorganize his priorities).

Some people respond to his comments, some don't. Only one starts up a conversation in the comment thread. Their username is markthetwain, and they write wry pieces that always get Eduardo to snort with laughter. The author is fairly and recently prolific and grateful for the comments and constructive criticism.

 **robotchicken:** Great job as always! I really enjoyed the scenario here, obviously hoping for something like this to happen when the show starts :D

 **markthetwain:** thanks for commenting. this was fun to write, even though it's entirely speculative. however, based on recent spoilers, i think this might be the opposite of what's going to happen.

 **robotchicken:** That would be so sad! Not that Ben/Leslie is the end-all to everything, but it would be nice to see them happy.

 **markthetwain:** they're fictional characters, but i totally agree with you. even though i miss justin.

 **robotchicken:** What??? Justin was too suave. Ben is the real deal.

They have silly conversations like that. But it's nice. It feels real. Eduardo begins to look forward to talking to this person online.

He works up to it slowly, but eventually he adds markthetwain to his friends list.

-

Against his better judgment, Mark says yes. 

-

 

Eduardo rereads everything that markthetwain has written so far, because he finishes up a report way too quickly. And then he has the rest of the day and all of the evening, so he goes backwards through their old journal entries, clicking randomly through all the ones that he knows were friendslocked, until he sees it. It's far back, years back in the archives, and he's feeling a little bit stalkerish, this poor strange internet author.

Except.

He doesn't-- it can't be, it's got to be a joke, something stupid, Dustin hacking into things just to fuck with him, maybe it's even _Mark_ fucking with him for shits and giggles, if anyone could do that it would be him, but-- 

The letters on the screen are damning, crisp black on the white background, and he recognizes them like some sort of freakish text-based ghost.

 _erica albright is a bitch_ , five words, exactly twenty-five characters if you count spaces, five words that, a little over half a decade ago, changed Eduardo's _fucking life_

 _erica albright is a bitch_ and markthetwain is _Mark_ , Facebook founder and bastard ex-best-friend extraordinaire.

He goes to his friends page and refreshes it. markthetwain-- Mark-- has just commented on something, meaning that he's online. He goes to Facebook. He and Mark are still Facebook friends for whatever reason; either he never deleted him from the list or Mark hacked it at some point so that he was there. (And why shouldn't he have, it's his site and some PR shill probably told him to do that for the papers--)

He clicks on the chat window, clicks on Mark's name, and begins to type.

-

_You have a new message from Eduardo Saverin!_

Mark blinks, and clicks on the flashing tab.

That's unexpected.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** markthetwain? that's not much better than zuckonit.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** fuck.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** yeah. yes. fuck.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** I'm robotchicken, by the way, if you hadn't realized that yet.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** I thought you had deleted those entries from Harvard.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** I made them private. or I thought I did. how did you find out?

 **Eduardo Saverin:** after you added me back I clicked around a little. you must have missed one.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** you're kind of a good writer.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** that's not the point here, eduardo, but thank you.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** fuck, and don't tell dustin or chris about this. or anyone ever.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** it doesn't exactly look good for me either, you know.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** yeah. shit.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** we should delete the accounts. stop for good.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** and just stop, yeah. it was better when we weren't talking.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** technically we were. have been talking. about a tv show, but we've still been talking.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** and maybe I want to stop that. because it's you, okay, is that so hard to comprehend?

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** I guess not.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** good.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** wait.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** after the settlement, didn't I unfriend you?

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** no.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** did you like, add me back in somehow?

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** no.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** then what?

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** you just blocked me from your page. you didn't actually delete me.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** oh.

-

He doesn't actually want to delete his LiveJournal account.

Even though he should.

And Mark. Mark should too.

This is-- not good. 

-

Mark messages him, now that Eduardo's apparently opened up bridges of contact or something despite him saying that he _didn't_ want to talk. Mark is apparently ignoring that specific line of text. 

**Mark Zuckerberg:** thank you for complimenting my writing. and for commenting all those times. 

**Eduardo Saverin:** I actually meant it at the time.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** which I appreciated.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** we shouldn't be talking about this, Mark

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** it's on the internet, wardo. someone once told me, the internet is written in ink.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** turns out she was right.

-

"Don't tell Dustin," is what Mark decides to start out with. And even though Chris is three thousand miles away in Washington, D.C., Mark can _feel_ him blinking several times in quick succession and then calming his features, smoothing out his face to neutral.

"Mark," Chris says, gently, calmly, the picture perfect PR man, "what did you do?"

"Not much," Mark says. He's stumbling over his words a little bit. "Not anything that's bad for Facebook."

"Mark, I'm not your PR head anymore," Chris reminds him. "Remember? I work at the White House?"

"Yes, yes, congratulations, now try to get your guy elected to a second term," Mark says automatically. "Wait. Sorry. Shit. Chris. Okay, this is not bad for Facebook, but it's personal, and social, and-- yeah."

"You know what would help?" Chris asks him, not meanly. "If you could tell me what the fuck is going on, Mark."

"I'm getting there." Mark scrubs at his face with a hand. "It's a little-- don't judge."

"I'll try," Chris rejoins. "Go on."

Mark takes a deep breath. "Yeah. Okay. So Dustin made me watch _Parks and Rec_ on Netflix--"

"You too?" Chris interrupts. "I think he even got to Eduardo somehow. If he ever meets Amy Poehler in person I think he might cry."

"Probably," Mark agrees. "Actually, that's kind of what happened. I watched it, and Eduardo watched it, and we both... kind of started to talk about the show?"

"But that's _good_ ," Chris says. "You two communicating, that's good Mark."

"Except it was anonymous and it was on LiveJournal," Mark says in one rush of breath and yup, that's what he was waiting for: over the phone line he can heard the thud as Chris's palm meets his forehead.

"I am _so_ telling Dustin," Chris grumbles, "because you make my life difficult even though I _don't_ work for you anymore, god Mark, you just--"

"But then we were talking about it," Mark continues, barging through Chris's litany of Ways Mark Could Be a Better Person, "on Facebook, and it was like, I missed talking to Eduardo. A lot."

"That's understandable," Chris says softly, "I mean, we've always been hoping you would realize that."

"We?"

"Dustin and I, come on Mark, you can't expect to not talk about you guys."

"I guess," Mark concedes grumpily. "Fine."

Chris is sighing. "So... you had an enjoyable conversation with Eduardo."

"Before he knew who I was, yes."

"Here's some free advice, Mark: try it again."

"Um," Mark says, and then there's a click as he ends the call.

Chris rolls his eyes and gets out his phone to text Dustin.

-

_You have a new message from Mark Zuckerberg!_

**Mark Zuckerberg:** is it sad that I enjoyed talking to you when you were this random stranger on the internet more than I enjoy talking to most people in my daily life?

 **Eduardo Saverin:** are we still doing this, Mark?

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** yes.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** because I'm curious to know if it was only me.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** it wasn't only you.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** but it's still kind of sad.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** and yet it's not the worst thing in the world, wardo.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** no, I guess it isn't.

\- 

From: dustinisthebest@admin.facebook.com  
To: mark@admin.facebook.com  
Subject: OHMYGOD OHMYGOD

MARK

YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAS HAPPENED

THERE IS A HOLLYWOOD TECH CONFERENCE AND PANEL EVENT THING

AND FOR SOME REASON AMY POEHLER AND AZIZ ANSARI WILL BE THERE. I DON'T KNOW WHY BUT IT IS THE MOST DELIGHTFUL THING EVER.

IT IS NEXT WEEKEND AND I HAVE EXTRA TICKETS. COME WITH MEEEEEE

-dustin

From: mark@admin.facebook.com  
To: dustinisthebest@admin.facebook.com  
Subject: I still cannot believe that is actually your email address

I will go on three conditions:

1\. you admit you are actually a fourteen year old girl.  
2\. you give me two tickets so I can invite a guest.  
3\. you never send me an email in all capslock again

-MZ

 

From: dustinisthebest@admin.facebook.com  
To: mark@admin.facebook.com  
Subject: capslock is how I express joy

But fine. done, done, and done.

Who're you inviting, marky?

-dustin

-

_You have a new message from Mark Zuckerberg!_

**Mark Zuckerberg:** I don't know if you want to fly halfway across the world to spend an entire weekend with me and Dustin, but 

**Mark Zuckerberg:** there's a tech conference and a panel, and Amy Poehler and Aziz Ansari will be speaking.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** we have tickets, if you'd like to come.

 **Eduardo Saverin:** You know what?

 **Eduardo Saverin:** Yes. Okay. I'll go. On one condition.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** what?

 **Eduardo Saverin:** we never tell Dustin he was the reason we started talking to each other again.

 **Mark Zuckerberg:** agreed.


End file.
